COA Publishes White Paper on Scholarly Work

At its October 2019 meeting, the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA) approved the publication of the white paper, “Scholarly Work for Practice Doctorate Nurse Anesthesia Programs: Current State and Guidance.” 

The purpose of the white paper is to guide programs’ development of criteria for scholarly work as defined in the Standards for Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Programs: Practice Doctorate. The white paper addresses titling the work, key scholarly work elements and evaluation of the scholarly work. The paper also touches on topics such as the use of student teams to complete the scholarly work, literature reviews, academic portfolios, original research, resources and more. 

Please follow this link to obtain a copy of white paper from the COA website:

Scholarly Work for Practice Doctorate Nurse Anesthesia Programs: Current State and Guidance (PDF)

Additionally, the White Paper on Scholarly Work Special Interest Group Chair, Shari Burns, EdD, CRNA will be providing a presentation on the white paper at the AANA Assembly of Didactic and Clinical Educators meeting on Thursday, February 20th from 2:00p.m.-3:00p.m. There will be an opportunity for questions and answers at the conclusion of the presentation. 

The COA would like to thank all the individuals who provided feedback via the various surveys and call for comments on the first draft of this white paper. Those contributions were essential in the development of this document. Please contact the COA at accreditation@coacrna.org or 847-655-1160 with any questions or comments regarding the white paper.